USA > Indiana > Perry County > Cannelton > Cannelton, Perry County, Ind., at the intersection of the eastern margin of the Illinois coal basin, by the Ohio River : its natural advantages as a site for manufacturing > Part 3
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The materials required for the erection of buildings exist in great va- riety and profusion on the very spot alluded to, and labor may be had from 25 to 30 per cent. cheaper than in New England, in consequence of the corrosponding cheapness of almost every article of living. On the very borders of the cotton growing regions, on the very brink of one of the noble rivers which constitute the great thoroughfares of the West, and with the great valley of the Mississippi for a market, the location at Cannelton stands unrivaled, as to its facilities for manufac- turing, by any spot in the Union, whether we have reference either to communication, transportation, materials, labor, or the sale of the pro- duction of the spindle or the loom, or all of them. These remarks, and the statements which accompany them, are well substantiated facts and practical realities. They require no argument to sustain them, for, to any one at all acquainted with the manufacturing business, and with the circumstances named, or who will take the trouble to inquire, they will become self-evident. But, even in the city of Lowell, itself, a steam cotton mill was erected in 1846, with an engine of 190 horse
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power; and that this enterprise proves a profitable one, would seem to be pretty certain, from the fact that another has been commenced in that city, and is soon to be put in operation, with 10,368 spindles, and with 260 looms, with a capacity for about double that quantity of ma- chinery. If, at Lowell, steam power can be made to compete success- fully with water power, what may not be expected of steam power om the lower Ohio !*_ Art. IV .- De Bow's Commercial Review, for Au- gust, 1849.
PIT COAL.
If, of the two motive powers, water and steam, the latter is not only more convenient but less expensive, it is important to know where steam can be produced at the least cost.
Were I to state, briefly, that our Western coal fields are more exten. sive, richer in quality, and far more accessible than any other known; that, on the Ohio, we can obtain coal at four cents per bushel as good as that which sells at sixteen cents per bushel at Manchester, England, I might not be believed. We have heard and read so much of the enor- mous quantity of coal used in and exported from Eagland, of the wealth it has produced, and of the dense population on and around her coal measures, that we infer that the English coal seams are of greater puri- ty, of vast thickness, and more cheaply worked than in any other coun- try. Text books and Encyclopedias give us very few details of collie- ries; and the following facts, which I have gathered from books devoted exclusively to the subject, and from topographical works, may be of interest, while they sustain my position.
The only coal measures of practical interest to us are those of France, Belgium, Great Britain, Nova Scotia, and the United States. There are indications of coal in about thirty of the departments of France- that of Aveyron, near Spain, is said to be the most extensive, but, from the character of the country, or some unknown cause, is least worked. The latest authority I can find, gives only 7,000 persons employed in all the departments in the coal mines, and the supply of coals for the French steam marine is obtained from Belgium and England. There is a bed of coal, about 700 feet beneath the surface, extending from Val- enciennes, France, under Mons and Namur to Liege, in Belgium. This is one hundred and fifty miles in length, and six miles in width, and about 35,000 colliers are there employed. This quality of the coal is
*"On all the cotton goods mannfactured in New England, the cost of motive power (sleam or water does not average over three mills per vard. The steam mill goods tiom certain well i nown causes, are of so much better quality than others, as to texture, smoot .. ness, &c., that they comumnd in market prices so much greater than others. that the difference will considerably more than pay the entire cost of steam porcer used in their manufacture."-Hunt's Mer. Mag., March, 1850. Art. of C. T. James.
"The entire motive power required to drive the Cannelion cotton mill of 10,000 spindles, together with the fuel for heating the mill, &c , will not cost as much per spindle, as the fuel required for heating the Massachusetts mill at Lowell,-Ibid.
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inferior, and its cost and distance from the sea prevent its coming in competition with the English coal.
The coal beds of Ireland and Scotland are, on the whole, inferior to those of England, but have the same general characteristics.
The coal measures of England are west of a straight line drawn from Gosport to the mouth of the river Tees; the most important being on the British channel, in South Wales; in Flintshire, North Wales; in Lan- caster and Cumberland on the Irish Sea; Durham and Northumberland on the North Sea; and in Staffordshire and West Riding in central Eng- land. The coal in South Wales is only used on the spot for the smelt- ing and manufacture of iron, in the smelting of copper ore brough. from Cornwall, and in the manufacture of tin plate. The quanti thus used is about 40,000,000 bushels per annum. The Lancaster and Cumberland mines supply manufacturing cities in these counties, Liver- pool and other cities on the channel, and a large quantity required for exportation to France. the West Indies, the Mediterranean, Ireland, and the United States. I may here remark that this coal (known as "Liv- erpool," "Orell," &c., in the Eastern and New Orleans narkets) will continue to be imported by us, at the present duty, as long as it will bring from twenty to twenty-five cents per bushel; but, at this rate, it cannot pay freight. It is used as ballast, and of course the price at which it is sold is no criterion of its cost.
The Durham and Northumberland, known generally as the Newcas- tle, collieries supply the western and southern sections of England, and the demand in France, Belgium, and the Baltic; the chef market being London. Of the quantity required in that city, some idea can be form- ed from the consumption of nearly seven millions of bushels in her gas- works.
The coal of central England is used in Birmingham, Stafford, Shef- field, and other manufacturing cities. Edinburgh is supplied with coal from the vicinity; and the extensive cotton manufactor es of Glasgow and Paisley are also furnished from collieries in the immediate district.
In stating the cost of coal to the manufacturing consumer, and for do. mestic purposes, this explanation is necessary: It is of kinds and names nnknown to us. Seventy distinct varieties are sent to London, and the screened and the small coal, the slack and the cinder of the same varie- ty are of different prices; often several varieties are combined, and the prices are as numerous as the compounds. Bovey coal is a bituminous wood holding an intermediate place between peat and pit coal; yet it is worked an hundred feet "below the grass." Sulphureous coal is dan- gerous to work; culm is of but little more value, and neither are used when better coal can be had. The Orell and Cannel varieties are the best for manufacturing purposes, and come nearest, in appearance and velue, to our Western coal. At New Orleans, for manufacturing pur- poses, the Pittsburg coal is, on the whole, preferred to them; at the Bos- ton gas works. the Indiana coal has been tested with and found superior to them; and in the accurate and numerous experiments made by Prof .. W. R. Johnson, under direction of Congress, both Pittsburg and Indi- ana coal are proved superior to the best Liverpool and Newcastle coal
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for the generation of steam. When we shall separate the lamina of our eoal seams, we shall probably find all the best varieties for the inanufac- ture of iron known in England.
At Sheffield the prices of household coal) a mixture of hard, small or xleck, and round or cobblings) is near seven cents per bushel; the strong, clear, and hard kinds, used for iron work, about fourteen cents. The immense consumption of coal in Manchester is supplied from collieries within eight miles, and at the cost of from six cents to fifteen cents. At Birmingham, the price ranges from six to sixteen cents. The Leeds coal is inferior, and sells at about seven cents. At Liverpool the aver age cost of sm ill coal is quoted at ten cents, and of hard at thirteen an three-fourths cents. At the Staffordshire potteries the price is occasion- ally less han six cents; but the coal seam is so soft that only one-third is mined.
The London prices quoted are: "Hetton" and "Walsend" twenty-five and one-tenth cents, and Newcastle, first and second qualities, average twenty-two and a half cents. These high prices, however, are caused by city charges and transportation.
By the term "hard" coal is meant the hard layers of bituminous coa].
I do not find any tabular statements of cost, except in counection with gas works. Here, generally, the best Liverpool, Wigan and Can- nel is preferred; and I give the table below, taken front a report of J. Hedley, to the House of Commons, in 1837:
Price por Tan.
Price per Bushel.
Description.
Birmingham
11s 10d.
.$0.108.
Bromwich.
Staffordshire
9s
3d.
.095
do
Macclesfield
8s
.074. Common.
Half Cannel.
Stockport 15s
.136
a 19s 6d
Manchester 15s
2d.
.138 Mixed.
Liverpool
18s
.163
Cannel.
Bradford.
8s
6d.
.077 3 sorts used.
Leeds.
83
.074 .} Cannel.
Sheffield
7s
9d.
.072. .
Cannel a 16%
Liecester
13s
6d
.119.
Derby .
13s
6d.
.119
Derbyshire soft coal. do
Nottingham
13s
6d.
.119
do
London. 17s
.154.
. Newcastle.
$1,447
Which gives an average of over eleven cents per bushel. If we tako the average of coal, equal in quality to Pittsburg, the average price at the great manufacturing citics of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, is from fourteen to fifteen cents per bushel. Twenty-six bush- als and twenty-four pounds of our coal make a ton. I give twenty-six
1
3 sorts used.
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and a half bushels to the ton. The respective weights, per cubic feet, are:
Liverpool 78.83
Newcastle. 78.54
Pittsburg. 78.37
Cannelton, Indiana. 79.54
according to Prof. Johnson's report. The advantage of the calculation, therefore, is against us. And yet, in ignorance of the facts, many of our men of capital and enterprise doubt whether we can enter into con- petition with English manufactures, because of the cheapness of English coal !
THICKNESS AND DEPTH OF THE COAL SEAMS.
South Wales .- The beds have been worked 2,100 feet below the surface, although generally it has not been found necessary to go deeper than 480 feet. There are 12 seams between 3 and 5 feet; 11 from 18 inches to 3 feet, and several, which are not worked, from 12 to 18 inch- es thick.
Whitehaven .- The Howgill mine is 600 feet below the bed of the sea, and carried 3,000 feet from the shore.
Dunham .- The most important colliery is the Montagu, 3} miles above Newcastle. Of this the Benwell main is 4 feet 9 inches thick - 305 feet deep. The Beaumont seam 3 feet four incl.es thick-409 feet deep. Low main 2 feet 11 inches thick-523 feet deep. Low low main 2 feet 10 inches thick-SS2 feet deep.
Of the superincumbent mass 301 feet is Whinstone and post; the first of which is so hard that angular fragments will cut glass, and the latter is a hard kind of freestone, suitable for grindstones.
Cumberland .- "K ng's pit," near Whitehaven; 1 seam is 12 feet thick-726 feet deep. 2 seams 2 feet thick-900 feet deep. 3 seams 6 feet 1 inch thick-1,293 feet deep.
Ashby .- At a depth of 475 feet, 5 beds of different qualities are worked, averaging about 3 feet in thickness.
Sheffield .- The principal seams worked near Sheffield are: 1. Seam 4 feet thick-depth not stated. 2. Seam 2 feet 3 inches thick, and 78 feet below the 1st. 3 Seam 3 feet 9 inches thick-198 feet below the 1st. 4. Seam 4 feet 6 inches thick -498 feet below the 1st. 5. Seam 5 feet thick-1,093 feet deep. 6. Sean 6 feet thick -depth not stated. Of these, the second seam is largely worked, and known as furnace coal. The third has 7 lamina of different qualities. The fourth is, in working, separated into S layers, the lowest portion being Cannel coal, and used exclusively in the Sheffield gas works. The fifth, or "manor seam," has 15 layers, including two of soil. The sixth, or "Sheffield bed," has 6 or 8 varieties, some abounding in iron pyrites.
Northumberland .- The shallowest pit is 138 feet deep, and the lowest 1.230 feet perpendicular; of which the shaft aloue cost about $350,000.
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At Monkwearmouthshire, the boring commenced in 1326, and had reached, in 1835, as low as 1,590 feet, passing through but a single available seam, at a depth of 1,578 feet; and, indeed, none other was looked for under 1,800 feet deep. In working this shaft about $500,000 had been expended!
"In the 'Alfred' pit, at Jarrow, there is a 30 horse steam engine, erect- ed at a depth of 78 feet below the surface, and used in raising the coals up a shaft which unites with the workings carried out 270 feet deeper still. At this profound depth, another engine draws the coals up an in- clined plane that lies coincident with the dip of the strata."
At the "Swan Banks" colliery, near Halifax, the "hard band" coal seam 2 feet 3 inches thick, is 442 feet deep, and the "soft bed" coal 1 foot 5 inches thiek, is worked 812 feet below the surface.
The foregoing are about the average value of the coal beils in En- gland. The thickest seam is that called the "Ten Yard-Vein," near Dudley. This, however, as is the case in all very thiek beds, is diffi- cult to work. The coal is tender, the roof is not firm, and only about one-third of the coal can be taken ont. Besides, thus far, no machine- ry has been found in detaching blocks of coal from the niass. Where the ordinary pick is insufficient, gunpowder is used, and, wherever this is required, Davy's safety lamp would be superfluous. The seams worked at the least expense are from five to eight feet thick. Of the average depth and thickness of the coal in England, I have no precise data. It is safe, however, to estimate the depth at between 600 and 700 feet, and the thickness from 3 to 33 feet.
The cost of reaching and working these mines is enormous; cheap labor and capital only could sustain it. Where else but in England would a capitalist persevere for nine years, and expend half a million of dollars without any return, on the judgment of a "coal viewer" or ge- ologist?
The labor and cost of raising the coal from such depths is but slight when compared with that required to drain and ventilate the mines. Drainage is sometimes effected by "adits" or drifts. The Cornish adit, for example, extends its ramifications about 26,000 fathoms, and empties into Falmouth harbor. 'The adit of the Duke of Bridgewater's mines, at Worsley, is a prodigious work, about thirty miles long, and navigable for barges. But. generally, the water is taken from the mines by the use of the steam engine. For this purpose the "South Hetton" colliery has three engines of 100 horse power each, and one of 300 horse power; of the latter, the beam contains 81,840 pounds of iron, makes fifteen strokes per minute, and raises 800 pounds of water at each stroke. The cost of this engine was £10,000. And yet coal mines are often inundated, and sometimes thereby rendered useless.
The process of ventilating the mines is complicated and costly, and so imperfect that the mines are never entirely safe from the deadly ef- fects of the fire and choke damp. After the awful tragedies at the Pitt mines, it seems strange that man should risk a similar catastrophe, but, in England, life is as cheap as capital or labor.
I cannot, without extending this paper to a great length, enumerate
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even all the important obstacles in the way of the English collier, but cannot omit reference to "dykes."
"Dykes," says Mr. Coneybeare, "are an endless source of difficulty and expense to the coal owner, throwing the seams out of their level [at Clackinanshire 1,230 feet] and filling the mines with water and fire damp." And, yet, Prof. Buckland thanks God for so placing these "faults;" "for, without them, ' says he, "the mines could not be drained by the powers of the most approved machinery."
The statesmen of England attribute her great prosperity and power to her coal fields, and Parliaments have anxiously inquired of the surveyor and geologist whether the supply would last two or three thousand years longer. They may, in time, hear of our vast beds of the same mineral, of superior purity, without a "fault;" which is found by drifts and not shafts; which require no artificial means of drainage or ventilation; in whose veins life is safe, and labor not irksome; and which underlies a soil of unsurpassed fertility; and they may remember the fate of Thebes, Athens, and Rome, and reflect that no amount of capital, no prepon- derance of power can long sustain a city or State when competing with superior natural advantages elsewhere.
NOVA SCOTIA .- The Albion mines are in Pictou, on the northern side of Nova Scotia, and eight and a half miles distant from the town of the same name. The coal is transported the whole distance by railroad, or by the river, in barges. The strata are similar to those of Stafford- shire. The Sydney and Bridgeport mines are on the eastern side of the island of Cape Breton. The coal in this field is similar in quality to that at Newcastle. Railroads are required here, and also steam "tugs" to tow coal vessels in and out of the harbors. The shallowest pit de- scribed is 180 feet deep; as the dip of the veins is rapid and towards the sea, the workings will continually increase in depth. The seams, per- haps, are not as thick as those of England, and, judging from the price at which the coal is sold in New England, the cost of working them is not less .*
Martin, in his "Colonial Library, ' states that all these mines are held by the "General Mining Association" as tenants of the crown and the late Duke of York, with a capital of $2,000,000, chiefly invested in boats, machinery, and other means of carrying on its mining operations. The nearest and on'y great market for this coal is New England, where ts price ranges from 20 to 30 cents per bushel, after paying an import luty of about 45 cents per ton.
*"The cost of Sydney and Pictou coal on board, independent of interest and oyalty, is ninety-one cents per ton. At Picton the large coal is sold by the single argo at $3 30 per chaldron"-7} cents per bushel. Freight of coal from Pictou o Boston (average) $2 9; to Providence $2 39. This gives an average cost of Pictou coal at the wharves of Boston and Providence of orer 15 cents per bushel, nd exclusive of interest, exchange, insurance, commissions, &c. "The Pictou nd Providence colliers are able to make no more than four trips during the sea- on of six months, in which the navigation remains practicable and safe." "The elative value of Pictou coal to anthracite is 88-100."-Coal Trade of Br. Am. by Prof. W. R. Johnson.
3
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Before I touch on the coal measures of the United States, I make a few quotations from various writers on the importance and value of this mineral.
"It cannot here be necessary to point out the many advantages which we derive from the possession of our coal mines, the sources of greater riches than ever issued from the mines of Peru, or from the diamond grounds at the base of the Neela Mulla mountains. But for our com- mand of fuel, the inventions of Watt and Arkwright would have been of small account; our iron mines must long since have ceased to be worked, and nearly every important branch of manufacture which we now possess must have been rendered impracticable, or, at best, have been conducted upon a comparatively insignificant scale."-Porter's Porgress of the Nation.
"'The ascent of Mount Blanc from Chamouni is considered, and with justice, as the most toilsome feat that a strong man can execute in two days. The combustion of two pounds of coal would place him on the summit."-Sir J. F. W Hershel.
"The amount of the work now done by machinery, moved by steam, n England has been supposed to be equivalent to that of between three and four hundred millions of men by direct labor."
Dr. Thompson says that in the coal fields on the north and northwest of Birmingham, the loss in mining, owing to the tender nature of the substance itself, and the comparatively trifling demand for small coal, amounts to about two-thirds of the entire seam. In allusion to this statement, and the efforts of a celebrated philosopher to economize the application of fuel, Mr. Tredgold exclaims: "The waste, which Count Rumford lamented so much, dwindles to nothing in comparison with the wholesale destruction of a valuable material. Are you a manufacturer? Look around and see what generates the power which enables you to compete with other nations. Are you a philanthropist? Consider that a substance is destroyed which would add comfort to millions of your fellow creatures; consider the risk at which it is procured; the number of lives that are lost by explosions, and the misery these catastrophes create. Surely, some means of rendering that portion useful, which is now wasted, may be devised."
"In a work, lately published by a Spaniard, there is a comparison between the produce of the gold and silver mines in America and the coal mines of England. in which the author exhibits a balance in favor of the latter of no less than 229,500,000 francs annually."
"Pennsylvania realizes from her coal mines an annual income of 4} millions, and Great Britain of 192 millions of dollars."-Hitchcock's Geol. Mass., 1841.
My last quotation is from the splendid speech of Mr. Webster:
"It [steam] is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on his oars; it is in the highways, and begins to exert itself along the courses of land conveyances; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand (he might have said 1,800) feet below the earth's surface; it is in the mill, and in the workshops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it weaves, it spins, it prints,"
The geological map of the United States, compiled from surveys of
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D. Dale Owen and others, under direction of Congrees, and from other sources, by Lyell, and published in his travels, gives the boundaries of the following coal fields:
The first near Richmond, Va., of very limited extent.
The second in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which is not rich enough to compete with the foreign supply.
The third in the centre of Michigan, underlying perhaps one-third of that State and touching Saganaw Bay. Of this I cannot find any fur- ther description.
The fourth, or Appalachian, extends from the southern and interior counties of New York nearly to the southern point of the Tennessee river in Alabama. Its western limit is near Pomeroy, on the Ohio river; it approaches to within about forty miles of Lake Erie, near Cleveland, and its point nearest the tide-waters of the Atlantic is per- haps from ninety to one hundred miles west of Philadelphia.
On the eastern slope, in Pennsylvania its character is chiefly anthra- cite; in Maryland and Virginia bituminous; and here are the richest mines of coal now known. Their value is now fully appreciated.
Anthracite coal was first used on tide-water as fuel in 1820, and the supply sent to market in that year was only 365 tons. In 1846 the total supply was 2,333,594 tons; and 11,468 vessels, exclusive of boats, were loaded with it for coastwise demand. The great and only draw- back to the value of this coal-field is its location in the mountains, and its distance from market. Over fifty millions of dollars have already been expended in making canals, railroads, and other facilities for transporting the coal to points where it can be profitably used, and then the largest part of its cost is the result of labor outside of the mine. The interest on this capital, and the demand for this labor, will be per- petual.
On the western slope of the Alleghanies this coal-field assumes a bit- uminious character. The only points, at which it is of present value to us, are where it touches the navigable waters of the Ohio and its tribu- taries. Here the coal is so abundant, so accessible, so cheaply and ea- sily worked, that geologists and "coal viewers" have not been called on to describe its strata; and the only reliable authority I find in reference to it is in Silliman's Journal, of October, 1835, and taken from a me- moir of Dr. S. P. Hildreth. He gives this type of the field in the val- ley of the Monongahela:
"No less than four deposits of coal are fourd from the tops of the hills to the bed of the river; the uppermost is at an elevation of 300 feet, and is 6 feet in thickness; the second is 150 feet above the bed of the river, and 7 feet thick-the coal of an excellent quality; the third is 30 feet above the river, 3 feet thick, and coal rather inferior; the fourth bed is a few feet beneath the river, 6 feet thick, and of superior quality."
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